


I See The Moon and The Moon Sees Me

by kyburg



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Spoilers, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Clint Is a Good Bro, Darkness, Gen, Inadvertent Musical, Iron Man 3 Compliant, It's not the loss, MIA Bruce Banner, Science Bros, it's the separation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 21:16:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4236888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyburg/pseuds/kyburg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Look up - and keep the faith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I See The Moon and The Moon Sees Me

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this missed the end of Science Bros Week 2015, but wanted to get this posted in spite of that. Insanely busy, also lied like a cheap rug - this *is* post-AoU.
> 
> Written to the prompt "Darkness."
> 
> One more after this -

**"...Darkness falls across the land. The midnight hour is close at hand - "**

The music had everything - tape hiss, audial wobble and alarming 'ka-CHUNK' sounds as it switched from one program to the next. In short, even listening in the dark didn't improve it.

"Barton, that's an eight-track player. What the hell."

"Yup. Came with the house, found it in the attic. Works great, don't break and I don't argue with free stuff. Just, the playlist is a bit short."

"And getting shorter all the time, I'm sure. Damn." 

It had taken weeks to convince Pepper to put the phone down and simply hand everything over to her team of assistants, but Tony Stark had managed to convince her it was needed. By dint of persistence, some long nights of his own and sheer bullheadedness, it had come together in spite of his girl being very good at what she did - which was work, and work hard at what she loved. 

It verged on brinkmanship too often for his comfort level. Pepper Potts did not forget, and if he was going to work himself hard? Well.

"If I have to stop, you have to stop too, Tony." Sitting behind her desk, watching him drink his coffee before starting in on the skin-milk latte he'd brought her, Pepper had folded her hands on the desk with a fond expression, totally certain she had all the reasons why it would never come to pass. Then she took up the tablet he handed her, the to-do list already opened and saw that he had crossed every last one of the 'honey dos' off of it. Even the ones she'd wish listed. He'd smiled back at her when her jaw dropped. "You really are serious. You've redone the encryption on the Stark Cloak?"

"If I'm going to break the one there is, gonna have to. Just, not today. Yanno."

She'd nodded slowly, swallowing hard. "Yeah."

He'd had a moment's regret when he hadn't come up with his own bolthole but co-opting Clint Barton's hadn't been a problem. Sounded like he wanted company when Tony had contacted him. Pepper liked Laura Barton on sight and before he could turn his back, was so mixed up with the kids out in the meadows he'd lost track of her. He was left to adult with...the adults. Who, being in the middle of a number of renovation projects, were actually kinda interesting. At least, when it came to some engineering hackery, they were suitably impressed and Tony found himself smiling again in spite of himself.

If he could only stop looking over his shoulder for Banner. Or quit turning to ask his opinion or try to make him laugh with a quick bit of business. Once or twice, he noticed Clint watching him with a sober look in his eyes, shrugging and grinning when he got caught watching him too closely. Barton always knew, damn his hide. 

The afternoon Clint had dragged out the 8-track player, Laura had broken away after working as a journeyman electrician on the front porch, claiming there was a chicken pot pie in the oven for dinner - and she had to get back to it - but as soon as she left, both he and Clint had stopped work when the sounds of happy children coming up the road mixed in with the calm but lively sound of his girl enjoying herself. Wiring in a circuit just for the Christmas lights so that the Bartons could turn them on and off with the flick of a switch, Tony and Clint finished the task just as Pepper, Cooper and Lila reached them.

They all came in for dinner that night muddy, bug-bitten, scratched by twigs and thorns, grinning ear to ear. "There's a lake Tony, and the kids say there's fish in it." Pepper looked at him with more sweat mixed with dust on her face than he'd ever seen before and he couldn't help but think it looked better than some of the heaviest makeup jobs he'd seen her wear. Brushing some of the hair out of her face with an equally dirty hand, he moved in to give her a quick smooch before looking into her eyes.

"Fish, huh? You got something for that, Barton?" He'd asked, hearing the other man moving things out of the way behind them. Watching Pepper track on Clint, looking over his shoulder, Tony turned around himself to see the kids helping their father push a pile unlikely junk aside as they began pulling things out with the ease and confidence of long association.

"Fish is good for breakfast, you know," Clint Barton had popped off, pulling a handful of fishing rods out of who-knew-where, dusting off a tackle box as well. "Brain food."

"Yeah, I can tell by talking to you, birdbrain," Tony retorted, watching as the kids took the rods with glee to check them over before handing them up to Pepper who took one, then the other with a confused but interested look on her face. 

"We'll go catch nightcrawlers tonight! It's a full moon, isn't it Dad?" Cooper, asked after the task confident he wouldn't be shot down, his dark eyes twinkling. 

"Why that it is, kiddo. That it is." Remaining calm, semi-amused at the random chaos that was life with his children, Clint only grinned as the cheering went up. 

And then leaned back and howled like a wolf. Pepper jumped out of her skin, Tony clapped both hands over his ears and the Bartons, to a man - laughed themselves silly.

Times like this, Tony really missed Rogers. No, scratch that. Thor. Thor would happily barbeque them for this affront. Damn, his ears were still ringing!

Chicken pot pie tasted really good after a day like that. The wine he'd brought with him from California paired nicely with it, and conversation hadn't strayed far from staying up late to look at the full moon through Tony's telescope, courtesy of the quinjet. Handy for carrying gear like that, now that it wasn't full of Avengers and all. 

The moon would make it too bright to see much else, but the kids didn't know that yet and being able to see craters and other features on the moon's surface was compensation enough for missing television time. The baby put to bed, the monitor sitting next to them in the grass of the front yard as the novelty of the telescope wore thin, the kids picked up their coffee cans, flashlights and announced it was time to go gather the nightcrawlers they would need on the morn to go catch breakfast.

"Nightcrawlers, Clint? They're going to go catch worms. Earthworms."

" _Special_ worms. Local specialty," he'd answered, winking at him. "Bet your girl won't touch 'em."

"I heard that," the subject of his gibe retorted, swinging her own coffee can by its baling wire handle as she and Laura Barton strolled past the two of them sitting next to the telescope in lawn chairs in the relative darkness. "Laura is taking me, just so you don't have to do it yourself - we won't be long. Don't go calling Voltron while we're gone." Waving unlit flashlights at them, the women left the two of them sitting next to the telescope as the followed the children down the path.

"Well, off with you then - good hunting!" Waving the little search party off, Clint waited until they were out of earshot before he leaned over to get Tony's attention. "Damn, she's a game duck. I kinda like her."

"You have no idea, and I'm a little disturbed. Just so you know."

Letting the 8-track player go through the few cartridges that still had labels on them, Tony took the opportunity to look up into the brightest star field he'd had the opportunity to enjoy in years. Knowing Barton would have no trouble tracking them, Tony pointed out the many satellites that traveled across as they listened to some of the best the sixties and seventies music scene had to offer. Or at least, what had produced the most copies of whatever it had been, back in the day.

"That's the last of them with a name on it, huh?" The carrying case had held less than a dozen cartridges, and only a few of them still had labels - some had the title written on the plastic case itself with a Sharpie. But even then, there were still a few brightly colored ones with no clue to their contents, bald as eggs. "Any of those the White Album, by chance?" Wine, stars and cheezy pop tunes - Tony Stark was slumming, and it was good.

"Yeah, I think so. Okay, feeling like living dangerously? Pick a color."

"There's still enough light for you to see color?" 

"Sure, can't you?" Clint had toasted him with a glass of wine then, and it was the only thing Tony could make out in the moonlight.

"Eff you, Barton. Okay, green then."

"Your wish is my command. Green, huh?"

"Sure, why not. You got one of those?" Keeping his eyes skyward, Tony listened to Clint rattle around in the flimsy plastic 'carrying case' the handful of cartridges he owned were kept in. Even CD jewel cases didn't make as much of a racket.

"Looks like I got a couple of those. Want neon green or kelly green?"

"Neon is probably disco, and that's scary. Go with the kelly green."

A cartridge was chosen, the one playing was removed from the player with the press of a button and the new one was inserted. Spinning up, the tape hiss the loudest thing before the chapter mark switched the program from the last one to the first and the music began to play.

Tony Stark found himself consciously keeping his mouth shut as Clint frowned, pulled out his tablet phone and opened up Shazam. "What the eff is this?"

He let him go through the motions, feeling much older than he felt he deserved to. "John Denver, "Tony said at last, "Not even one of the best ones, either. Probably older than you are."

"Kinda nice."

"Then hushup and listen."

**"...And the moon and the stars are the same ones you see It's the same old sun up in the sky...."**

"Poor slob died in a plane crash, long after his fifteen minutes were over," Tony said quietly. "But he did know how to turn a phrase. He wrote that one when...things...kept him from going home to the people he loved. Homesick, and yet - not. Perspective."

"The moon and the stars are the same. Huh." Kicking back, Clint looked up into the starfield as well, stretching legs out in front of him as he put the tech away. 

The 8-track player promptly ate the tape, garbling the end of the song and then stopped playing anything at all. Extracting the cartridge from the player, Clint held up the cartridge in one hand, the magnetic tape it had held in the other, a wad of shiny brown plastic spaghetti strung between them in a wry display to Tony.

"I'm not fixing that. "

"Not asking you to. Another one bites the dust!" Putting the remains of the folk music industry from the seventies to the side, Clint saluted the player with his now empty wine glass. "I'm also out of whatever this was, so that's done too for the night."

"So it is. Not a bad thing."

"Not at all."

"I see the moon, and the moon sees me." Tony could smell the wood burning, and looking over in the dimness to watch Clint think a long thought, his lips pursing as he turned it over in his head, his eyes already unfocused and looking off into the distance. "Aw, man," he said at last. "Stark, you know where he is."

"Nope." Looking back up into the star field, Tony avoided looking at Clint. Much as he had consciously had tried not to look over his shoulder just a few moments before. _Banner, you huge, massive jerk._

"You know how to find him." 

"Not exactly. I know how to find the cloaking on the quinjet he took. Not the same thing."

"But you will. You're going to. Right?"

"Maaaybe. I'm not of the mind I should," he said calmly as he heard Clint turn in his lawn chair to look at him. "The Initiative is only out one Quinjet, and just maybe the encryption needed to be redone anyway - best practices and all. But nobody has asked me to, not yet. Did Natasha say - "

"Nah, man. Just. He's my sister's fella - and."

"And. I know. Gah, she positively _simpered_ over the guy - that was frightening, you know that right? Never saw either of them so happy." There was still a little wine left in his glass, so he drained it. "Clint?"

It was quiet, in the little valley that late. Tony even thought he heard the kids off in the distance squealing over their earthworm discoveries in the dark. He certainly heard the baby sleeping soundly, little rumbly snorts coming over baby monitor as Clint thought hard about his next sentence, fingers rubbing against each other in his lap. "You miss him?" he said quietly, "I mean, it was all bad enough but he had to know nobody wanted him to go, right?"

"I miss him. I expect to hear him any day now, but I never do. For a guy that large, he had an uncanny ability to be so quiet." Unconsciously mirroring Clint's fidgeting, Tony blew air before continuing. "My friend thought we were all crazy to stay in the same room with him, every time we did it, and no amount of talking it over ever changed his mind on that point. Name it, I tried it. Bruce thought no place in the world was safe from him, and up to the last time - he was the only one convinced. The Other Guy? No so much."

"What changed?"

"Johannesberg. That's what happened. Had to break out Veronika, use the armor he and I had put aside as the lastest of last resorts. Something I'd built as a promise, a favor to him. Like giving him a blanket so he'd sleep better at night." Sighing, Tony closed his own eyes for a moment. "Just before I was able to knock the Other Guy out, he saw what he'd done. And for the very first time? He _knew_ what he'd done - and it hurt. That - was different. Gave me the opening to knock him out, and I'm not proud of that, by the way. But suddenly, things had changed. You remember."

"You think it was the Other Guy who decided to leave? That's - "

"Bruce tried to take himself out once, Clint. The Other Guy stopped him. Now? Maybe this time that part of Bruce made the trip over to the Other Guy in Johannesberg. And once everything was settled up, he came to the same conclusion as Bruce. No place was safe from him. No place...not a threat." Tony found a twig in his lap and tossed it into the darkness. "Not my call. He didn't ask me. Knew what I would say."

"Aren't you worried about him?"

"No. Can't worry, that's like sending up a flare that you're thinking only about the stuff you don't want to happen. Leaves you no time to think about anything else. No, I'm not worried about him. Can't." Tony found himself staring down into his hands instead of up into the stars, unaware he'd done so. "Wouldn't change anything."

"You think he's even still alive?" The tone was curious, bright but calm. Clint just appeared willing to listen to Tony without asking anything more from it. So the words came easier, tumbling out. 

"Sure. I don't know any different, good or bad - so why should I think otherwise?" Sitting up, Tony turned to face Clint who remained only a shadow in the near-darkness, limned in moonlight. "Look. I trust the guy. I know the guy, as much as anyone is ever going to know Bruce Banner. He tried to kill himself once - and failed. Instead of going back to try again until he found a way to make that happen, he turned to the rest of the world to make the best of it, worried every moment - see how stupid that is? - that he would bring harm instead of help. All the time. I can do a lot of talking, and I talked Bruce around until I got tired of it. Nothing. Stubborn jackass."

"I know." The words were soft, barely voiced. "But Nat worries. And she misses him."

"And when the rubber met the road, she showed him she valued the hero over the man. And the Other Guy knew it. Clint, she didn't let Bruce go - she traded him for the Other Guy because she needed him. That's not a slam - it was a good plan. But for both of them, it was kind of the last straw. Once he wasn't needed anymore? I wish the Other Guy hadn't gotten that much of Bruce in him. He saw what Bruce had been saying all this time, and he did what Bruce had done. He took himself out."

"That's why you haven't gone after him. You don't want to just set him off again when you do find him."

"Trust me, if I want to find the man - I can. That's my tech he took, there isn't a place on Earth he can hide from me forever. No, Clint. I'm not worried. I have hope."

"That's better?"

"Sure. You hope for the best. You hold that out like leaving the porch light on. You make a plan for the future. You think of what that is going to look like, and then you make it happen. Instead of worrying about what might happen, you draw a blueprint for the future, a way out of the trouble you're in. You have hope, my friend.

"You look up into the sky, see the moon and the stars and hope your friend is looking at them too, because you hope he misses you. And wants to be found. Like you want to be found. Clint, if there is anything I know in this life - it's that getting things you hope for is so much sweeter than finding out something you worried about didn't happen. So much sweeter."

"When are you going to go after him?" It was asked with a rackish grin, after Clint exhaled a long sigh.

"Soon. But not yet. I'll only get one shot at this, so I'm not in a rush. You understand."

"Sure. But. Think if we got in a bind, he'd come in on his own?"

"Count on it. I am absolutely certain of it. But don't get any ideas."

Raising both hands in a mock surrender, Clint shook his head. "Not me, man. I got a family to think of."

Grinning ruefully, he looked away before turning in his chair to look up into the night sky again, Tony following suit a breath later.

"I see the moon - "

"And the moon sees me."

"God loves the moon - "

"And Thor loves me." Giving Tony the stinkeye, Clint watched as the other man only shrugged as he folded his arms behind his head to look up in the stars. "Okay, maybe just a little bit," Tony added.

"You jerk. Lucky jerk. Good thing I like jerks, you know that?"

"Yup. Why, it's like I know you or or something."

Pepper and the other Bartons came back soon after, cans full of dirt and worms, kids full of yawns and sleepy thoughts. Taking Pepper's hand to brush a kiss across the back before she leaned in to rest her forehead on his, Tony looked out of the corner of his eye to see Laura brush one hand down Clint's cheek in a caress as she went by, following the kids inside the house. "I have gotten things I've hoped for, Clint," he said quietly. "They may not have come on my timetable, but I've learned to keep the faith."

"You never struck me as much of a believer, Tony."

"I'm not." He only rolled a shoulder in a half-shrug. "I trust myself. What else can I believe in? No matter what, someday it will all become clear. And I'll have the answers. I always do, right?"

"And if you make a mess, you can always clean it up."

"That too."

"Good night Tony."

"Sweet dreams? I can only hope so." Letting Pepper take him by the hand, Tony allowed her to lead him inside. There was plenty of hot water this time of night, and the shower was good for getting all of the dirt and sweat off before they laid together in the guest bed, making plans, talking softly together before falling asleep together.

Hoping there would be a night and a day soon he would be teasing Bruce and Natasha about hiding zucchini again. So be it, he thought sleepily. 

_I insist._

**Author's Note:**

> So help me, I am going to make this AoU stuff _work._
> 
> Hope you like this - and as always, comments are adored and given good homes.
> 
> EDIT: Because the song is quickly becoming obscure and hard to get - [here, have a link. It's a sweet little tune.](http://mumblesnscribbles.tumblr.com/post/122850884002/this-is-my-cure-for-homesickness-and-probably)


End file.
